Migration and Employment Policy and Their Impact on Social Integration: Evidence From Nigeria

Abstract

Scholars have long sought answers for the socio-economic and political discomfort of immigrants. Migrants became underclass and exploited in their new environment. In a field survey conducted in Ondo State, Nigeria, the study examined the ontological submissions about immigrants’ plight for employment and the host community’s potentials at tapping high skills available among the migrants. The study anchored on Talcott Parson’s AGIL- Social System Theory of societal survival, most especially its functional prerequisites, notably adaptation, goal, integration and pattern maintenance. The overall finding emerging from the study is that social integration links positively to migrants’ acquired work ethics, acceptance into formal workforce, and socio-communal interactions. Consequently, standardised integration of skilled-migrants into workforce shaped cordial relationship and lasting peace between migrants and the host community.